Jun 4, 2012

Safely stop an itchy bug bite

It's that time of the year when mosquitoes, black flies, noseeums, horse flies, deer flies, etc. start to come out and chomp on me. Over the years, I figured out a remedy to deaden the itch from a bug bite. I've tried it on my boys (a good reason to have children ... handy subjects to validate experiments! :) and it works on them as well:

Hold a face towel at opposite corners and twist in opposite directions to form a long, twisted tube.

Turn on the hot water tap. Let the water get nice and hot.

Put the middle of the face towel under the hot water. Only the middle of the towel.

Quickly dab an itchy bug bite. When I say quickly, I truly mean quickly. What you're trying to do is not burn yourself but burn the bug bite. As the towel cools down, hold the dab longer until you're holding the towel directly on the bite. If you're doing it right, it'll feel as if you're scratching the bug bite. Ahhhhhhh! Relief.

Do the above one to three times. You'll note after the first round, the bite is no longer as itchy. It typically takes me two rounds to kill the itch.